Create full party or go solo
TrueDannyboy
Member Posts: 17
Do most of you just play one character and pick up players along the way? Or do you prefer creating your own entire party from the start? I've played through this game so many times mainly solo all alignment types. But it got me to thinking what is the perfect party. Perfect maybe isn't the right word, more or less what party composition would destroy on Insane difficulty?
So for this new play through (Creating my own full party)
Tank - Dwarven Defender
Support Melee - Cavalier
Ranged DPS - Rangerx2
Assassin - Ranged
Involker.
For those that have never played a ranger. They are insane. Most groups even on insane rarely even make it to my front line. They just mow through mobs. Still early going for now. Will see if this group is still viable at higher levels.
Would love to see other members thoughts. I was thinking maybe no assassin / bard instead. But wanted to try high end back stabs in BG2
D,
So for this new play through (Creating my own full party)
Tank - Dwarven Defender
Support Melee - Cavalier
Ranged DPS - Rangerx2
Assassin - Ranged
Involker.
For those that have never played a ranger. They are insane. Most groups even on insane rarely even make it to my front line. They just mow through mobs. Still early going for now. Will see if this group is still viable at higher levels.
Would love to see other members thoughts. I was thinking maybe no assassin / bard instead. But wanted to try high end back stabs in BG2
D,
2
Comments
Sorcerer or Skald
4 archers
The C/T can act as tank/decoy with some summons while the archers obliterate everything within one round. I'd give one of them xbow (army schythe), two of them longbow (deadeye and comp.bow) and one of them shortbow (eagle bow) proficiencies. The sorc or skald can throw some magic into the mix just for fun and the skald can sing as well.
I've never tried this but I have thought about trying this or somethig similar for IWD. In BG1 archers reign supreme though.
edit: You would pretty much never have to sleep/rest, never have to buff before fights. You just need a shitload of arrows/bolts, but that's not hard to maintain (at least not with a "no-limit" stacking mod).
You can get a similar effect using stuff like 4-6 berzerkers(only buff you'll ever need, except vs basilisks and a few other fights)/dwarven defenders/paladins. 5 blackguards and 1 assassing using darts/ranged for some poison overkill, even though it's been nerfed in 2.0+ might be weird and fun, but mostly weird, hehe..
edit2: Just saw that you mentioned BG2 as well, then I would not advice 4 archers. Then I would go with a more berzerker and melee heavy party instead. I thought you just talked about BG1 first.
Fighter/mage
Blackguard not sure to make him my protagonist
Sorcerer
Skald
Lathander/thief
Imoen mage/thief
Even imoen can backstab im planning giving her a quarterstaff. The skald carsomyr.. The lathander the fast spear. And bastard sword for the blackguard not sure of the second weapon. He also has points in sword and shield no 2h.so far. The F/M with flail and later katana. Only the sorc cant melee but i think she is very strong. I can feel it
In my case Im playing
Chavallier,
Ranger/Cleric
Archer
Thief/Mage
Cleric/Illusionist
Sorcerer
I´m thinking about switching Archer to Kensei->Thief and
the Thief/Mage to Swashbuckler-> Druid at the start of BG2,
But im not too sure about it. Works pretty well till now. / means multi and -> means Dualclass.
Also for the larger fights, My meat shield holds aggro enough and is insanely tanky. Dwarven defenders are amazing. If you have not had one on your front line I would recommend it.
To make it a challenge limit metagaming and NO using fog of war or other exploits of the game AI and engine.
The best configuration is usually: 2 tanks that can do damage with low AC; to middle fighters (with range abilities and some spells - meaning multiclass characters or a bard), one mage and a cleric (for initial blast to soften them up, buffs, disabling and summons (can't go wrong with free meat shields) - if they can't hit you because they are feared or something, or to busy dealing with summons who cares if they do double or triple damage.
If you are role-playing and going for max entertainment but don't want to deal with the NPCs - then really choose the classes and kits you want to play with and have fun - limit metagaming entirely for a run through. Any combination will see you through the game unless you intentionally use some very odd combinations (for example: a shape changer, beast master, shaman group would be unusual) and even then if you play them well you should be able to beat the game - just a little more micro-management required.
If going for a partial party - again making your own team allows for you to have maximum strategy when you are designing your party. A smaller group (of say 4) even multi-classed or dualed will easily reach xp cap even before the end of the game. Limit metagaming for fun and a better challenge.
As for soloing - well this is mostly to say I've soloed the game - it requires metagaming knowledge to actually do - you most likely will either be a triple class (eg fighter/mage/thief is the usual to play for max power) or be some kind of mage/sorcerer class or maybe a fighter class of some kind. Is it fun soloing - sure it is to some extent but you are basically metagaming the entire series - if you do it once there really isn't much point to doing it again.
For a challenge install SCS mod for greater difficulty as it makes the AI for monsters/opponents that much better meaning they get smarter; if you find you have too much gold (as most of us do which allows us to buy whatever gear we want include all those that cost 20,000+ gp - then install the 100,000 gp mod that increases the cost of using the shadow thieves/Bodhi to that amount - so you have to budget what you spend and NO using the cheap stealing and selling back to the same merchant for infinite gold and NO potion stacking of potion of master thievery (in BG2) - only use one of each type of thief potion and see how much you can steal or pick pocket with no reloads or saves allowed - it really forces you to be very selective if you are trying to steal or pick pocket someone.
Fighter/Mage/Thief as @magisensei said is my character of choice with solo runs, it's the perfect multi-class for it. When you get to 19 int, you an learn all the spells and you can really start dishing it out with magic in BG2. Mastering the art of backstabbing makes you really deadly.
Going 2 ppl I go with
- Half-Orc Fighter/Thief (Dual-Wielder) and 19-18-19 as physical stats.
- Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Mage with maxxed ST/CN/IQ/WS, and the rest in charisma (Gloves for 18 dex).
I like this party a lot in BG:EE tho I have yet to beat the game with it and import into BG2.
With 4 ppl I use less multi-classing
- The same Half-orc as my 2 ppl group
- Elf Cleric
- Generalist Mage
- Ranger(Archer).
My most overpowered group of all time has been
- Elf Fighter, everything in LongSwords and 2W-Fighting
- Elf Ranger(Archer)
- Elf Fighter/Thief/Mage
- Half-Elf Fighter/Cleric/Mage
- Human Wizard (Evoker)
- Elf Sorceress
Basically every main protagonist I had created at the time all mashed-up together.
A bit low on healing but I took them all the way thru BG1/BG2 and it was a complete massacre.
Everyone used different weapon so I made use of almost all the loot
Another variation was to remove the human Mage and instead have a human Monk in BG2
But yeah it was Elf-Heavy. 2 of which looked like Drows.
Nowadays I try to be a little more diverse. I try to have no more than one of each race.
I see the point in having pure classes. The dual/multisystem is strange. Would be way nicer having some full allrounder instead. (yknow people in Chainmail but less spellselection or caster levels)
Tank / Front Line - Cavalier
Healer / Front line - Dwarven Fighter/cleric
DPS / Front Line - Kensai, Master 2hander sword (Insane Dmg, 50 HP crits already lvl 6/7)
DPS / back line - Ranger, archer Elven (as always best at trash kills) -3 thaco already
Support - Bard, The nordic one forgot the name already lol. But that buff is to amazing for my already existing party. Also carries heavy crossbow for opener / or spells depending.
Thief - Halfling, Having a properly kitted thief is pretty paramount, You sadly need a true thief not any of the other kits.
This group seems to be wrecking things. The sword and board Cavalier I'm insanely impressed with.
Just finished durlags and did it in one shot no wipes. Even the last fight felt pretty simplistic.
Thoughts?
I recently played the "Kivan" mod through the whole saga. He killed every dragon in the game.
I was redoing fights to give the other NPC a chance to get a big kill on their personal records (silly I know but decided that they were suffering from "big kill" envy).
5 pips in longbows.
Of course you need magic to undo protections, but after that, the damage with arrows, safely from distance, was huge.
Dual to Mage after say, 9 levels of fighters (5 pips in 2H-sword in Danny's case), and maximized HP gains would work really well. The party will have to cover for him at first tho.